Higher Education Balances Quality and Affordability

The campus autonomy policy that was launched in 2000 has resulted in a cut in government subsidies for state universities and, consequently, an increase in admission and tuition fees. It seems now that only those from well-off families have access to higher education. National Education Ministry's Director General of Higher Education Fasli Jalal talked about the issue with The Jakarta Post's Erwida Maulia.

Question: Since the government launched the campus autonomy policy, tuition fees at state universities have been continuously increasing from year to year. Why is it so?


Answer: It is actually more because state universities want to push themselves to meet international standards.

Since they discovered the global university ranking system, with transparent indicators covering around 13,000 state and private universities in almost 160 countries worldwide, these universities began to realize that they still had many weak spots. These included lack of publications; many lecturers holding only bachelor's degrees; poor communication between students and lecturers; poor information and communication technology facilities; poor access to international journals and the limited number of Indonesians attending international forums.

Because they are aware that the government's financial support, despite annual increases, cannot keep up with their need to improve quality, these universities then try many ways to earn revenue. Tuition fees are only one source of revenue; the universities also seek to earn money from selling patents, as well as research and consultancy services.

Is it true that the government's current focus on nine-year compulsory education results in less attention on higher education?

Yes, we are now focusing on the provision of nine-year basic compulsory education. We are focusing on providing sufficient operating costs for schools, providing scholarships for children from poor families, distributing books, building new schools or new classrooms and preparing teachers so as to comply with the requirements of the 2005 law on teachers and lecturers. All these things need a huge amount of money.

That's why (the development of) higher education has to wait a bit longer; (we'll focus on it) after we finish with compulsory education and the implementation of the teachers and lecturers law.

The Directorate General of Higher Education now allocates Rp 14 trillion (approximately US$1.5 billion) for higher education. There is only Rp 2.2 trillion left in the directorate general for the higher education budget. We use Rp 400 billion to support polytechnic
programs, in which we are now cooperating with regional administrations to develop 14 polytechnics and establish 26 others in line with market demands. We use Rp 300 billion to send our lecturers to postgraduate studies domestically and abroad and allocate Rp 400 billion for research.

After the launch of the campus autonomy policy, has the quality of Indonesian universities improved?

Autonomous universities have shown good progress. For example, according to the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES), none of our universities were in the world's top 500 universities for years. But, three years after gaining autonomy status (in 2002), three universities -- University of Indonesia (UI), Gadjah Mada University (UGM) and Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) -- entered the top 500, and even the world's top 400 universities list in 2005. In 2006, Diponegoro University followed suit and in 2007, Airlangga University joined the list.

As soon as the government frees these universities, they seem to become more creative and manage their funds more efficiently. They can also apply a system in which lecturers who can teach better and have more students receive better payments, they can open or close study programs and restructure their organizations according to their needs, which are all made possible thanks to the autonomy status.

Are you saying that the government is currently focusing more on quality improvement instead of expansion of access?

We are doing both. But, quality improvement is dominating because quality is the most significant factor in higher education. We are doing our best to be quality oriented.

For expansion of access, we have a target, or a strategic plan, to increase our college participation rate from the current 17.2 percent of the country's 26 million population between the age of 19 and 24, or around 4.3 million college students, to 18 percent. In fact, when the current Cabinet started serving (in 2004), the college participation rate stood at only 14 percent. So in the last four years we have managed to increase the rate by 3.2 percent. This is quite significant.

How does the government address the issue of higher education becoming more unreachable for the poor?

We provide scholarships for 170,000 university students this year, half of which are awarded primarily because of low incomes and the other half for students with good academic records, with priority still given to those from poor backgrounds.

We also have a new scholarship scheme, in which we offer scholarships worth a total of Rp 10 billion for 2,000 would-be college students, which also covers university entrance test fees. This is to reach underprivileged high school graduates so they are not discouraged (by costly college tuition fees) and so there is no disincentive for them to
enroll at university.